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Music to our ears?

It's not that I'm not biased given the subject matter of the study, and its conclusion, but I thought you'd find this piece from the LA Health News magazine worth a read. An excerpt:

Songs that make our hearts soar can make them stronger too, researchers report. They found that when people listened to their favorite music, their blood vessels dilated in much the same way as when laughing, or taking blood medications.

"We have a pretty impressive effect," said Dr. Michael Miller, director of preventive cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore.

"Blood vessel diameter improved... The vessel opened up pretty significantly. You can see the vessels opening up with other activities such as exercise," Miller said. A similar effect is seen with drugs such as statins and ACE inhibitors.

The inverse was also found to be true, i.e. when the individuals listened to music they disliked, their blood vessels narrowed. I guess this means I really should:

10 comments:

Nice info. You must have heard about music healing of plants. It is similar to this theory. And music definately helps us to get over everything around us. And that's what Resul Pookutty said in his speech [about Om].

This version of Pehla Nasha is lovely. Thanks for putting it up.

Certainly I can not even stand to bad music. And some truck/bus/pvt.vehicles drivers plays horrible repeat songs [most favs of them are Dilwale and stuff like that, yuck] I hate them. To some extent I like peppy Pritam nos. which are not rip offs. [some] And your choices are interesting. I would love to put Karunesh in this list. See this Fabulous video.

Kanan: True! Long live good music indeed. Whenever I see an old movie (1940s through 1970s), I realize Hindi film music has deteriorated over time, but while a lot of our current music cannot be compared to the old school greats, at least a lot is still pretty good in its own right.

Darshit: Glad you enjoyed this. Yes, music therapy has long been studied and all, but it's always cool to come across the info in a health magazine :) I like the approaches Resul Pookutty and A. R. Rahman take to their professions, really. I haven't read a whole lot about Resul, but I know Rahman has said his work is based around spirituality, which I find really interesting.

Have you listened to the Buddha Bar series of music albums? If you like Karunesh, I'm sure you'll like it! I think it's even got that great mix by Karunesh.

Bhargav: I hope it leads to a fun discussion. Do share what your tutor has to say about it!

By spirituality and Rahman, I got this in my mind. Recently I read in Screen-Gulzar telling about Rahman---There's a beautiful tradition that Rahman follows-the moment his singer stands in front of microphone, Rahman lights a candle. So whenever I want to ask him when he is planning to start the recording, I jokingly asked him, "Mombatti kab jalaaoge?" :-D

Like your list! Those are all great names, that I am familiar with, although my knowledge stops at Frou Frou. Yes, indeed, music can be very healing. I must get my new mp3 player into action so I can listen to Hindi film music ... everywhere! I can't at the moment think of anything more uplifting and enlivening than Rahman at his best, and it doesn't surprise me to hear of the spirituality underpinning his work. I'm sure he has strengthened my heart!

Joss: Frou Frou's album 'Details' is among my favorite music albums of all time. For that alone, I think they deserve mention. I think you'll like the disc. As for A. R. Rahman and his take on spirituality, you might find the article that's quoted at the beginning of this post interesting. Completely agree on the strengthening of the heart, I think it's a blessing, really.

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